


Each of us a city

by Stultiloquentia



Series: Genderqueer Blaine [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: AFAB Blaine, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Audition Woes, Cissexism, Food, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Genderqueer Character, Intimacy, Navel-Gazing Both Literal and Figurative, New York City, One Three Hill, Other, Sequel, Shocking Authorial Self-Indulgence, Slow Burn, Songwriting, Vintage Underwear, effemiphobia, for "this story is under 20k" values of slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-08 13:40:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12865698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stultiloquentia/pseuds/Stultiloquentia
Summary: In which, in conversations and coffee cups, feelings develop, and the measure of a year is taken.This is a sequel toUntitled Clubbing Scene. Better read the porny one-shot first!





	1. A muddled prologue, in which the author thinks out loud

**Author's Note:**

> I can't thank pene, misqueue, likeasouffle, and wowbright enough for their advice and encouragement. All the remaining errors and confusions are my own fault.

"Jesus." It's the stranger who speaks first, sounding on the brink. 

Blaine hauls in a massive lungful of air and tips his head back, just far enough to meet his eyes. He feels his own smile come lazy and half-lidded. "My name's Blaine." 

The answering laughter is lovely. "Kurt." 

"Thank you." At that, Kurt seems to realize he still has his hand lightly cupping between Blaine's legs, for he gives a little start and withdraws. The vibe is quiet, though Blaine can't remember it cutting out. 

"Can I—would you—" and he brushes his fingers down Kurt's shirtfront to rest on his belt. 

Kurt's stomach goes taut and shivery, but he shakes his head after a small hesitation and reveals: "I like the wait." 

Blaine looks up at him through his lashes then and asks, "What do you like at the end of the wait?" 

* * *

…And then, you know, if I were properly writing this out properly instead of just daydreaming it, I would throw in a wrench right about now—a forcible separation, a missed connection, a second-guessing. Hand matters over to Fate. Maybe overtures are made to go home together, and they agree to tell their friends and meet in the anteroom in five, and at that point chaos strikes: a drunk friend in need of care, and Kurt is stuck in the bathroom holding Ria’s hair back while Blaine’s frown deepens and deepens in the lobby, until embarrassment sets in and he gives up and goes. “Fuck,” mutters Kurt, stomach flipping with disappointment when he can’t see Blaine to explain as he supports Ria on the way out. 

Boy, does Ria get ripped into once she’s sober. 

And the missed connection tugs at Kurt. A couple weeks pass, and this thing that Kurt did for once in his life with scarcely any thought has become, not too surprisingly, a thing he can't stop recollecting. It messes his balance. Throws his morning shower routine off by a beat. (Blaine was _so attractive_.) He worries at the memory of his own desire like he worried the tongue stud he wore a couple years ago. 

The meet-cute happens in a coffee shop after Ria leaves a dolefully funny note on the club's Missed Connections board that Blaine certainly was not stalking. Stalking is checking it more than twice a day. 

And there they are, bowtied and polished, startling each other with their daytime looks. 

Blaine has the sunniest smile Kurt has ever seen. 

_"You know Sunshine Corazon?!"_ Kurt gapes about fifteen minutes into their date, in the middle of the usual life story highlight reel small talk. 

“You sang in _that_ glee club?” 

And they’re off, highlight reels flung aside in favor of real conversation. Which lasts all afternoon, out of the café and into the park, pause for street food, and into the evening: easy and utterly unexpected, breathtaking, nerve-wracking, where-have-you-been-all-my-life? simpatico. 

When they part ways on a street corner at dusk, Blaine leans in and kisses the corner of Kurt's mouth. 

Reader, what does Kurt do then? 

* * *

Or…or else… 

Talk me through the version where they actually know each other of old. Yes: Kurt was sent to spy on Carmel High in his junior year, where he met Blaine. Who, at the time, was presenting as a butch lesbian. Some incident made them friends, or at least respectful allies. Kurt had other shit going on, so they never grew close. 

They meet at the club and "Untitled Clubbing Scene" happens much the same way. They become friends and fall into an odd sort of old-friend intimacy because of that shared history, but, for the same reason, they don't broach the subject of romance. It doesn't come up during their first coffee date; the conversation swings sort of awkwardly elsewhere: a tacit shuffle into BFF territory. And, pretty quickly, that becomes a safe space, where they can talk freely about sex and identity and music and family and everything that matters. For a year? Two? They pool their circles, and grow closer and closer, in the manner of certain college friendships that are fueled by idiotic, never-again, end-of-the-train-line adventures, and conversations, raw and delicate, in the wee hours while the rest of their world sleeps. They become Kurt and Blaine. 

How, in that case, do they finally tip toward Eros? Okay. Let's find out. 


	2. Dear Miss Manners

Blaine does not have a script for this. "Dear Miss Manners," he mutters out loud, fingers twitching over his computer keyboard, then laughs and finishes the rest in the privacy of his own head. "I am a 21-year-old college student who recently, uh, _encountered_ a passing acquaintance from high school in a dance club in Manhattan. He did not recognize me, because (a) strobe lights and (b) I'm not a 15-year-old lesbian anymore. I have successfully stalked him on Facebook, but am now unsure how to invite him for coffee and explain why I didn't tell him who I was the minute I recognized him. (Short answer: I was excited and scared and also tipsy.) Any suggestions?

"P.S. Fuck, he didn't used to be so hot."

* * *

 

Kurt's five minutes from the café where he agreed to meet Blaine, and running fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, when his phone pings. "Got here a bit early," the text reads. "What's your coffee order?"

Kurt pulls a wry face, tapping a reply with one thumb. He hoped to arrive first and find a seat with a good view of the door, spot Blaine before he was spotted. So either they're both obsessively punctual, or both more nervous about this reunion than they're letting on.

He's been running his memory of Friday night on loop all weekend, trying to reconcile the gorgeous queer boy from the club with the baby-faced sixteen-year-old he met a handful of times in high school. Blaine had been in a _skirt_ the first time, after the disastrous spying attempt at Crawford Country Day, escorting a red-faced Rachel Berry off the property and down the block to Kurt's waiting Navigator. He'd leaned in the passenger side window, two French braids brushing his shoulder blades under the sharp prep school blazer and a surprisingly kindly twinkle in his eye. "You must be M," he'd drawled.

The next time they spoke, Blaine had transferred to Carmel High. He'd found Kurt in the Lima Bean the week after glee sectionals: cropped hair and Doc Martens and a plaid shirt (nicely ironed)—and even if he looked about a hundred times more comfortable in that get-up than Vocal Adrenaline's shiny competition vests, he was still such a walking cliché of a baby butch that Kurt was certain his eyebrows had done something unkind in spite of his best efforts. But then Blaine had opened his mouth and said, "I heard you were starting a PFLAG chapter at McKinley. That's amazing. Can I talk to you about it?" and bought Kurt's coffee. Kurt had been impressed. He'd handed over all the resources he knew, and accepted Blaine’s friend request on Facebook, and they'd messaged each other now and then, fellow vanguard soldiers on the miserable tile and Astroturf battlefields of Midwestern high school politics, offering commiseration and solidarity from afar.

But that was it. Carmel was a long drive away, and Kurt had a lot of distractions. What could he possibly have in common with a flannel-clad lesbian, anyway, besides politics? A year or two later, when Kurt headed east and Blaine stopped using Facebook, he faded into the background blur of Kurt's high school career like countless other acquaintances.

Now he's a little poleaxed by how much he missed. Every memory, scarce though they are, feels suspect. What was it really like for Blaine?

"I'm out as a genderqueer guy," his email said. "I'm closer to the middle of the spectrum than many trans people, but I use he/him pronouns most of the time now, because with the way I usually dress, people read me as male in public anyway."

At Rosy's club, he'd been dressed in a black fishnet top that did nothing whatsoever to conceal his breasts. He'd fooled Kurt from behind, though. Lithe but sturdy frame, strong nape, beautifully cut shoulders that Kurt knows take _work_ for most people to achieve. Kurt jogs in place on the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change, and remembers the zing, the electricity between them. Kurt may be gay, but he's not a prude, and he's not the Nervous Nelly he was in high school: he saw, he admired, he didn't overthink it. And it was frankly the hottest encounter he's ever had in his life despite the fact that his clothes stayed on the whole time. But what happens now, in the light of day?

He remembers Mama Rose's injunction: pay attention.

Kurt slows down enough to steal a glance at his reflection in the window of a wig shop. He's wearing his favourite bright, floral buttondown that brings out the green in his eyes. He looks good. A straightforward assessment—as it's been since he reached adulthood. A gift not to be taken for granted.

He turns the corner and finds himself beneath the coffee shop's faded hanging sign. He's been here before. The place has gingham in the windows and a mix of cheesy pop art and uninspired vintage photos on the walls, but the donuts are homemade and enormous, and the coffee is hot, strong, and comes with cream, sugar, or nothing.

Blaine is immediately visible—he's standing at the condiments counter, doctoring his drink, and as soon as Kurt enters he smiles brightly and nudges the second mug at his elbow with a fingertip. "Good timing. Hi!"

And there they are, face to face, lit up by the sunshine streaming in through squeaky-clean glass. Blaine's wearing a fitted black polo with a sharp little red-striped bow tie. Kurt is less embarrassed about not recognizing him, because now that he's searching, he can find traces of the teenager he knew in the adult in front of him, but they aren't wildly obvious.

They snag the last two-person table in the tiny shop and sit. Blaine slings an expensive, though well-used, leather messenger bag over the back of his chair. He has the sunniest smile Kurt has ever seen.

They carry each other through a few sentences of reasonably graceful small talk. Settling in. Then Blaine cups both palms around his coffee mug and leans in, meeting Kurt's eyes squarely. Like he's getting down to business. "So you didn't recognize me at all last week, hm?"

Kurt's eyes widen at the blunt question. But Blaine grins, and his eyes glint with mischief. It's an invitation, Kurt immediately understands, to acknowledge what they did together in the depths of the club, and to put all consequent awkwardness between them on the table, laugh about it, and move forward. It's deftly done: the right words in the right intonation, with the right easy, conspiratorial posture. Kurt rallies to meet him. It's surprisingly effortless; Blaine's smile is so infectious. "Oh my god! Gimme a break; you were the last person I ever expected to see! And you don't exactly look like your high school self." He lets his eyes roam briefly across what's visible of Blaine's body above the table.

Blaine's cheeks pinken. "To be fair, that's, uh, kind of the point. I guess I'll cut you some slack."

"When did you…? I'm sorry, bad question, never mind."

"Stop being a lesbian?"

Kurt barks out a startled laugh. "Yeah."

"College. Well, I figured it out senior year of high school, but I didn't really…it's been a process." Blaine's smile goes wry, a little self-deprecating. "It's still a process."  

"I had no idea. I mean, I know we didn't know each other well, but still, I'm sorry if I ever made assumptions that made you uncomfortable—then or now. Though, to be honest, I still had trouble wrapping my head around concepts like _bisexuality_ in 2011; God knows how badly I'd have stuck my foot in my mouth if you'd bounced up and tried to teach me _genderqueer_."

"With the resources we had?" Blaine lets the shake of his head encompass the wonder that they both made it out alive, let alone in possession of a decent glossary. "God, just leaving Ohio for New York, walking into the room where NYU's Queer Union was holding its first meeting of the year. How many people were there, and what they looked like, and how they carried themselves…."

"O brave new world," says Kurt. "Ohh, yeah. Been there."

Blaine laughs. "At least I had Sunny. We clicked as soon as we met, and we decided we were going to NYU together—it has a great Peace and Justice Studies major that she's doing."

"Sunny…. Wait, Sunny from Carmel High? As in Sunshine?"

"Sunshine Corazon, yeah. We sang in—"

"You're friends with Sunshine Corazon."

"Kurt! Didn't you recognize her?"

"Oh no."

"Her hair is also much shorter," Blaine consoles. "And the dance floor was pretty dark."

Kurt buries his face in his hands. "Oh no, I am a jackass."

Blaine giggles at him. "You were blinded by my beauty."

"Li'l bit, yeah."


	3. Les promenades

Two months pass before they hear each other sing. Well, no, that's such a lie. Singing is too fundamental to both their make-ups. It was about an hour into their first date, rambling through the park, comparing notes on benevolently backwards show choir teachers who wouldn't let them play to their own vocal strengths out of undue reverence for the gender divide. "Gender abyss," snorts Kurt. "No crossing; you might fall in!"

"You can really still hit that F?" asks Blaine. " _I_ have trouble with that F."

"What's your range?" Kurt asks curiously. 

"Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel—!" Blaine replies. "Sun in the sky—you know how I feel—"

Kurt comes in on the third line, and is harmonizing by the fourth. Blaine sounds like Lena Hall.

"Wow. You're _good_."

But hearing each other sing on stage is different. Blaine, under the lights at Callbacks, is all angles. He's foregone the highwaters, lengthened his inseam, and is wearing sleek, blunt-toed men's shoes. He sings P!nk, but from back before every other song was a motivational anthem aimed at imaginary teenagers: "Feel Good Time," all vocal fry and moaning with two hands cradling the mic. One knee pops to the beat. And the smile he throws Kurt's way…if charisma were measured in kilowatts, he'd power the whole block. Later, he and Sunny duet on The New Pornographers' "Letter from an Occupant," bouncing all over the tiny stage.

Kurt entered the club with his mental list full of silly, fun numbers from his favourite black and white movies, but when his turn comes up, he finds himself flipping through the eighties catalog. _Chess_. "One Night in Bangkok." It's a potboiler, but he's wearing a gold shirt tonight, and his hair is styled to brush the rafters, and it's the perfect night to prove that Broadway too can ooze sex appeal with a side order of ridiculous.

Blaine's eyes flash as Kurt cocks his hips out at the crowd. Kurt feels giddy as the song hurls him into its ridiculous disco chorus and Blaine gets the rest of their table dancing in their chairs.

* * *

Kurt's phone buzzes at 7 AM. _Good morning, Kurt! It's beautiful outside. Want to try to get rush tickets to Waitress?_

An hour later, Blaine's dropping the change from his coffee order in the tip jar and handing Kurt his cup. Kurt does a happy little skip on the sidewalk and hums, randomly. _Alouette, gentille alouette…_ "I had a kindergarten teacher who told us the lyrics meant 'gentle feathered one' instead of 'I'm going to rip your feathers out.'"

"Sounds like an allegory for the patriarchy," says Blaine. Kurt tips his head back and hoots. "Also, what, _how_?"

"To this day I don't know if she genuinely thought plumerai was an adjectival form, or if she was just desperate to shelter us from the violence. Like, I think she was going for 'gentille plumerée' instead of 'je te plumerai'? Except that's a nonsense word and also closer to 'gentle _plucked_ one' than anything else."

"Wait, okay, so plume, noun, means feather…"

"Yup!"

"But plumer means…'to defeather'?"

"Bingo!" Kurt beams. "I called her out on it in the middle of sing-along time. I was so angry about the deception. It was years before I trusted the French language again."

"How the heck did eight-year-old you even know French verb conjugation?"

"Oh, I didn't. My mother was a Francophile. 'Alouette' was one of the first songs she sang to me, and of course I made her tell me what it meant."

Blaine grins, imagining tiny, lisping Kurt demanding language lessons. 

They queue up outside the Brooks Atkinson. Kurt fishes his pain au chocolat out of its paper sack and tears it in half, then darts in hurriedly to catch the still-warm chocolate with his tongue. "By the way, I love that you just said allegory instead of metaphor the way most people would," he says around a mouthful of pastry.

Blaine cackles and jabs Kurt with his elbow. "I love that you're enough of a snob to _praise_ me for that, you condescending ass."

"I'm a theatre major; what do you take me for? I played Death in an operatic production of _Everyman_ two years ago." He licks his fingers.

"Wow, I'd have liked to see that."

"It was really cool! Kind of like Zimmerman's _Metamorphoses_ , but with medieval allegories instead of Greek gods."

"Will you sing a bit for me?"

 _"Don't be afraid lille vän of violence / I'm only poisoning you, not gonna shoot you. / Don't be afraid lille vän of my troubled mind / I'm just poisoning you a little,"_ sings Kurt, full-throated in the middle of Midtown. Heads turn. 

Blaine makes a teakettle noise. "Oh shit, did you use only pop songs, or was there some original music? Please tell me one of the temptations was, like, a Miley Cyrus jam."

"Oh God, that's a mesmerizing thought."

"So? Original music? Modes?"

"No, this was the best part—they were almost all mash-ups…"

They fail at ticket-rushing, but who cares, it's a gorgeous day. They amble down 51st to Hell's Kitchen, past overpriced trattorias and apartment blocks, and stop for spiced Ethiopian coffee at the market. There's a jewelry trade show underway at the Javits Center. Kurt whimpers a little and seriously weighs trying to use his Vogue credentials to finagle his way inside, but Blaine lures him onward by singing "The Creation of Man" from _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ at him from the far side of the street. 

"Alouette, gentille alouette!" Kurt hollers back. 

"Now smock your frock, perfume your plume," sings Blaine.

"Je te plumerai!!"

* * *

Back in Bushwick, they make ramen from scratch, bumping hips and elbows at Kurt's tiny kitchen counter. Rachel bustles in and perks up when she sees them. "Oh! Hang on!" she says to the phone pressed to her ear. Balancing on one foot to undo her shoe buckle, she calls across the room, "Kurt, is it offensive to gay people if I record me and Jesse singing 'Best Worst Mistake' and change the pronouns?" 

Kurt's knife hovers briefly over his bunch of scallions before dropping back down. "I don't know, Rachel, I never applied for my license to speak on behalf of all gays."

"Does 'Best Worst Mistake' have pronouns?" Blaine wonders.

"The pronouns in my _head_ ," Rachel explains, ridding herself of hat and jacket. "Oooh, ramen!" And then, "Because it's a gay anthem, and Jesse and I, as you know, are het, even though Jesse did go through an experimental phase in which he—"

"Gah," Kurt interjects hastily. "Rachel!"

"Sorry!"

Rachel washes her hands at the sink, then reaches into the cupboard above her head for a box of tea and a mug. Kurt lights the burner under the kettle for her and she hip-checks him lightly in thanks.

"I change pronouns when I sing," Blaine offers after a moment. "Or change the meaning by _not_ changing them; whichever."

"Mmhm, but usually you're queering your repertoire, not straightening it," Kurt says, scraping the scallions into a tiny, flea-marketed glass bowl.

"It is true, I queer everything I touch." 

Kurt hands him a knob of ginger root. "Queer this into slices, please."

"But, I mean, Broadway is swarming with love songs that are same-sex on stage, but pronoun neutral. 'Song on the Sand'…'I'll Cover You'…. And I think part of the reason for that is to make them feel more universal," says Blaine.

"Singable at fundraising galas full of stuffy old white people."

"You are a stuffy white people," Rachel informs Kurt.

"Hey!" Kurt waves his knife at her. "I own it! But yeah. To be fair, people also enjoy singing songs _at_ each other, in second person."

Blaine says, "I love it when changing the gender of the singer changes the whole tone of the song, like that amazing Cam Clarke cover of 'Son of a Preacher Man,' or Jonathan Coulton's 'You Oughta Know.'" 

And then the conversation gallops off into a five minute brainstorm of all their favorite covers and who sings what best and when they can meet again with their laptops in tow to do an mp3 swap.

"'Someone to Watch Over Me,' Fitzgerald or Sinatra?" says Blaine, winding down. 

"Oh God, I hate that song." Rachel shudders.

"You hate Creepy Director Marcus who wanted you to sing it in a babydoll dress," says Kurt.

"Yes, but also the song."

"Aw, I kind of like it," says Blaine. "I totally get why you don't, I swear it's, like, right at the intersection of heteronormative and infantilizing, but. I don't know. I guess I've got a pretty stubborn nostalgic streak." Kurt cracks a smile at that, and, okay, so he's wearing jeans with loafers and a v-neck cardigan that could have been hand-knit by Mr. Rogers' mother. "Also that's one song I react to really differently depending on what kind of day I'm having. Like if I'm feeling butch or femme, and I feel like listening or singing it in a certain way, it's super easy to repurpose. Which makes it interesting."

"It's so awkward, though," says Rachel. "If a woman sings it, it's all about how women need men to take care of them, and if a man sings it, it's, like, hello Oedipus. Any character you could give it to is already so overdetermined, you can't win."

"Can't I?" Rachel and Kurt both focus on him, and Blaine winks at them. "When I'm singing in the shower, that's one thing, but if I were preparing it for performance? I'd do it as an ensemble piece. Set in a bar, right? With a line for the woman in the babydoll dress, _and_ one for the woman in the power suit, and one for the bartender, and the guy in front of him in the jacket and tie, and the bouncer."

" _Oh!_ " says Rachel.

Kurt laughs. "Nice. Cut the stereotypes off at the pass by imposing them on everybody at once."

"Everybody needs somebody, sometimes," says Blaine.

"And a big ol' fuck you to Creepy Marcus and Edward Albee to boot," says Rachel. She sticks out her hand, and Blaine shakes it.

They move their bowls to the table, pour water, and sit. "I had a theatrical composition prof a couple years ago who gave everybody the same set of song lyrics and then assigned us all a different context or mood and vocal range," Blaine tells them. "And then we went off and wrote a Broadway number, and came back and performed them for each other. We had really good discussions about the modes and keys and influences we picked, and also the stereotypes that crept into people's writing, and it was so neat. Like, at what point does musical shorthand for character archetypes—which _can_ be super useful—turn into pigeonholing?

"I was still, kind of, in the process of coming out at the time? Accepting that I was into guys, but also coming to terms with this idea that my gender doesn't feel the same every day; like, I'm maybe more genderfluid than genderqueer, really; I just love the word genderqueer because it's got 'queer' in it. So anyway, I got to talk about reception studies a lot, and transforming and subverting existing properties versus increasing minority representation through original work….

"There were a lot of gender/genre puns."

"Today's gender is riot grrrl," says Kurt.

"Pfft," says Blaine, and chopsticks a peanut off the little mountain of garnishes in Kurt's bowl. 

"Is that what it's like, though?" Rachel wonders. "You just wake up every day and decide, 'Hmm, today's gender is…'?"

"Yes," Blaine says, po-faced. "Today's gender is hungry for ramen."

* * *

As gently flippant as Blaine is with Rachel, he finds he can talk about himself to Kurt for days. "I dunno," he says on Sunday, as they amble through Central Park. The boaters are out. He watches a tall, athletic guy with a dopey smile work the oars of a two-seater with a pretty woman in the bow. "I want to be strong for someone."

"You think of that as part of gender?" Kurt turns a baffled frown on his companion. "Some of the strongest people in my life are women in cute ballet flats."

"No, no, not like good-in-a-crisis strong, or emotionally-resilient strong. It's…it's more like—an aesthetic I fantasize about."

"Okay."

They walk a few paces.

"Get on my back."

"What?"

"Like a piggyback. Hop on."

"What, here? But—" Kurt bites his tongue on the _I'm taller than you_ that threatens to come out. "All right."

He has to jump to seat himself on Blaine's hips, but Blaine doesn't even wobble, just grunts comically, bounces once, and wraps his hands around Kurt's thighs. "You good?"

"I'm awesome," Kurt says, dubiously, and then Blaine takes off at a sprint. "Oh my God! Blaine Devonne Anderson!"

"Hang on, pardner!" Blaine hollers back, and tears across the grass, scattering squirrels. 

Kurt clutches his noble steed around the shoulders and says, "Aaaaaaaaaaaauhuhuhaaaaaaaaaah!" 

Blaine deposits him neatly in line for an ice cream cone at a truck parked next to a fountain. He's flushed and sparkling, breathing harder than usual, but he looks perfectly ready to pick Kurt up and do it all over again.

"Today's gender is cheeky asshole," says Kurt a few minutes later, licking his strawberry cheesecake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I Will Always Love You/Chandelier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA2j1Bdn_gQ), Lena Hall and The Skivvies  
> [Feel Good Time](https://youtu.be/yxvxivX4_iE), P!nk  
> [One Night in Bangkok](https://youtu.be/mnqj31VPNoE), Murray Head  
> [Death is Not a Parallel Move](https://youtu.be/2NS2glmhSo4), of Montreal  
> [The Creation of Man](https://youtu.be/dY1X10GGsJI), Doug Sills  
> [Someone to Watch over Me](https://youtu.be/M20SQjjv_kI), Nina Simone  
> [Son of a Preacher Man](https://youtu.be/W99KA2hUsMQ?t=20s), Cam Clarke  
> [You Oughta Know](https://youtu.be/ThYOcH4XL80), Jonathan Coulton


	4. Smaller or taller

"The last words my dad said to me before I left home for good were, 'You can always come back.'" 

Blaine startles, parsing Kurt's sentence, for a moment, as, "The last words my dad said to me _ever_." Which is a little closer to Blaine's own reality than he prefers to think about.

But Kurt continues, "I think he's always still a bit surprised when I _do_."

"Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot interrupts them. ("Sorry, neither," Blaine mutters under his breath, making Kurt snort.) "We have started our descent toward Dayton International Airport. Our estimated arrival time is…" Blaine tunes out the rest. Rachel's parents are flying to New York for Christmas, and Sunny's headed to her uncle's house in Chicago, but Kurt and Blaine managed to coordinate travel plans and even charm the gate attendant into letting them sit together for the ninety minute flight. He's pleased to discover they make good travel buddies: they have similar ideas about how early is too early to arrive at the airport, and they both take their picnic lunchboxes very seriously.

"Do you like coming back to visit?" Blaine asks.

Kurt toys with the cuff of his jacket and says, "I love my dad more than anyone."

Blaine nods, and bends to stow the tablet he's barely glanced at anyway. Leaning back, he says, "D'you…does coming home make you feel smaller or taller?" He doesn't look at Kurt, but sees his head turn in his periphery. "Than your usual self, I mean."

"Hah, I actually grew another inch and a half after I left high school. I had to re-hem so many pants. It did feel very symbolic." Blaine does look over at Kurt then, and finds him looking back with an amused tilt to his mouth, but contemplative eyes. "No, I know what you mean. But I think—I am exactly as I am no matter where I go. My curse and blessing."

Blaine says, "I got a Facebook invite from my class president at Crawford last week, saying they reserved a room at the Brampton Inn restaurant for alumnae who're in town and want to catch up. I didn't even realize I was still on their list."

"Oh God! I can't even fathom a genteel night at Breadstix with my entire senior class. Getting all the glee kids in the same room is enough drama. Are you going to go?"

"Well, I didn't graduate from Crawford. I'd be an imposter, really." He pauses and giggles. "Someday it would be fun, though. Maybe for the ten-year. Reminisce fondly about Mrs. Singh's wacky homework assignments and watch people fumble with their assumptions that I'm somebody's spouse."

"To be fair, hon, you look pretty different without the braids."

"True. Deleted braids, added testosterone; just normal grad things."

The second they pass through the doors into the baggage claim area, Kurt gets yanked sideways and swept up in a hug by a big, bald man in a brown coat. Blaine catches sight of Kurt's expression of pure bliss before he hears his own name and sees Lolo and Lola waving and jumping up and down on the far side of the carousel. He grins and strides toward them, turning back in an indecisive two-step to say goodbye to Kurt, not wanting to break up that hug. Kurt cracks his eyes open, smiles at Blaine, and waggles his hand in a call-me motion over his father's shoulder. Blaine nods and goes to meet his grandparents.

A few days after Christmas, Blaine invites Kurt over for Filipino food. He spends the morning listening to NPR and kneading sticky ensaymada dough while Lola grates cheese and prepares the coconut and yam fillings. Usually he'd be the one tasked with grating and stirring, but this year Blaine wants to learn the feel of the dough, and let his grandmother fuss over and correct his efforts, while he still has time. In the afternoon, they make noodles and salad and lumpia and two kinds of stew.

Kurt arrives at five-thirty sharp with a six pack of fancy ginger beer and a bouquet of flowers. He's wearing a perfectly knotted Ascot, even though Blaine told him not to be formal. To be fair, Blaine dashed upstairs ten minutes ago to fix his hair and don a bow tie.

They serve in the kitchen. Blaine tells him the names of all the dishes. Lola comes along behind and echoes him, grinning as she teases Blaine for his Anglo accent. "That one's my favorite," says Blaine. "Puchero. It's beef in—this is going to sound weird, but trust me, okay?—bananas and tomato sauce."

Kurt sniffs curiously, then serves himself a generous spoonful. "Bananas?"

"Plantains!" says Lola, swatting Blaine. "Don't scare this poor boy!"

Blaine cackles as he accepts the ladle from Kurt. "Yes, that's what I said: saba banana."

"Trade route food!" Kurt says.

Blaine and his grandfather both laugh, and Lolo winks up at Blaine before pointing with his fork: "Cows from Europe, tomatoes from South America, and bananas from Philippines! This is smart boy, Blaine. Eats scary bananas, studies up on shipping routes, good knowledge. You bring him back any time." Blaine wonders if Kurt realizes he's being benignly teased.

Kurt laughs his funny little shoulder-jerking laugh and explains, "Our friend Sunny is taking a course on post-Columbian history. Global economics and stuff. She was telling us about it right before break." Then Blaine's grandparents make them recount everything they can remember about the conversation, and Blaine texts Sunny to get her to send a copy of her syllabus when she returns to school. 

After that, Kurt gets them going on their memories of Manila, in the golden age before the revolutions and their immigration to the States. Some of these stories Blaine has heard time and again, but others spring from questions Blaine's never thought to ask, about hostessing and homemaking, teenage fashions and children's schoolyard fads. 

Blaine invited Kurt home because he was excited for Kurt to meet his family and vice versa. Now he's struck by the way inviting one new person to the table can change a conversation as old and softly familiar to him as the taste of his favorite foods.

* * *

They meet up one more time before the flight back to New York, for a snowy amble around Kurt's town center (such as it is) and a visit to McKinley High. Blaine doesn't understand why it would be open during the holidays, but Kurt seems confident, and sure enough, the door is unlocked and the hallway Kurt leads them down is already lit. 

Kurt tells stories. "That's the astronomy classroom. I couldn't tell you if anyone ever learnt astronomy in there, but I'm pretty sure it's where half the football team learnt how to unhook a bra. Here's my old locker. And aww, here's the locker Dave always used to slam me into on his way to history class." His steps slow as they near the end of the hall and hear music drifting tinnily out of a door on the left. "Go home to your wife," Kurt mutters. Blaine throws him a sideways glance, which he ignores. "And here's the crucible," he says in normal tones. 

Kurt's high school choir room is small and ugly and underfurnished, compared with the burnished wood paneling at Crawford Country Day and the state-of-the-art stage and dazzling acoustics at Carmel. A set of risers, a few dozen plastic chairs, a piano, a drum kit…a floor-to-ceiling case crammed with trophies. And a man, in designer jeans and an unflattering vest, dancing alone to a pop track that topped the charts sometime in the eighties. 

Blaine thinks he notices them in the doorway a few seconds before he lets on: his spine straightens and his soft-shoeing gets a little slicker as he finishes out his eight-count. Then he turns with an actorly double-take and exclaims, "Oh! Kurt!"

Kurt lifts an eyebrow, though his expression is friendly and teasing. "Getting started on Regionals choreography already?"

Will Schuester smiles widely and beckons them into the room. "I was, but, ha, this tune just popped up on my iPod and I had to see if I remembered my old routine."

"And do you?"

"Yeah, I do." He shakes his head, self-deprecating. "Like it was yesterday."

Kurt sighs softly and steps forward. "Hi, Mr. Schue."

Schue chuckles. "It's great to see you, Kurt. But please, c'mon, call me Will! We're equals now!"

The flick of Kurt's gaze toward Blaine is barely there; they don't even lock eyes; but Blaine feels it like the seed of a laugh in the bottom of his lungs. "Okay, okay, old habits die hard, but I'll try. Will. Anyway, this is my friend Blaine. I'm just taking him on a tour of all my old haunts. Couldn't miss the choir room!"

"Of course not!" Schue agrees, reaching out to shake Blaine's hand. "What do you do, Blaine? An actor like Kurt here?" He looks him up and down. Dark peacoat, Blackwatch scarf; Blaine's not currently offering much to linger on. 

"I compose."

"Oh! Haha, well, that's great! Someone's gotta write great songs for the Rachels and Kurts of the world to sing, right?"

Blaine agrees politely.

"So how's Rachel and everyone? I've barely heard from you, you could be _Broadway stars_ by now, for all I know, haha!"

"Not yet," Kurt says lightly. "Rachel's auditioning right now, and I'm still doing my costuming internship. But Mercedes just signed a new contract, and Artie's short film got accepted at—"

"Oh great, that's great!" Schue breaks in. "What's Rachel auditioning for? There's chatter on the Broadway forums about an _Aspects of Love_ revival, she should keep an eye out—"

"There's never not chatter on forums about Webber revivals," Kurt says. "Trust me, she's on the right lists."

"Of course she is, she wouldn't be our Rachel otherwise, right?" 

Kurt steers the conversation briefly toward Schue's current crop of students, asks after his wife and his arch nemesis the cheerleading coach. Blaine sticks to the sidelines of the perfectly bland conversation rendered mildly hilarious by the nostalgic synthpop playlist still buzzing out of Schuester's speakers.

"Is the auditorium open?" Kurt asks as they say their goodbyes. "Mind if I…"

"Oh, yeah, should be. Go ahead. Good to see you, Kurt." Will moves in for a hug, which Kurt endures graciously.

Kurt leads them down the hall and through the door into the green room, past cheap vinyl sofas and tall scratched mirrors, to the dressing rooms, to the stage. The ghostlight glowers bluely in the dimness.

"Huh," Kurt grunts softly. Blaine, who knows a moment when he sees one, hangs back by the sound cage as Kurt steps out onto the apron. Blaine wonders if he'll sing.

Blaine looks around, at the obsolete banks of CD and cassette players guarded by a Beanie Baby and a purple-haired troll doll, at the grimy soundboard and somebody's spiral notebook labeled "Social Studies" in a childish hand. He finds the switches for the first and second electrics, then looks up at the flys. Suspended over center stage, twenty feet in the air, is a life-sized dairy cow. Paper maché or cloth stretched over a wooden frame, Blaine can't tell. 

Kurt's voice intrudes: "I flunked my NYADA audition right…here."

Blaine blinks, then wanders over to join his friend. "I'd have liked to see that. A rare and mysterious event, Kurt Hummel flunking something."

Kurt laughs. "Mme. Tibideaux called my performance inauthentic. Soulless and contrived."

Blaine peers at him. "Was she right?"

"I…" Kurt starts, then stops short and doesn't speak for a long moment. "No." He sounds a little breathless, like maybe he hasn't asked _himself_ that question in a long time, or ever. "I—hah, I was going to do _Phantom_ up until the last minute. I know it's a potboiler, but I wanted to show I could do it. I thought— _she_ needed to know I could do it."

"Kurt." Blaine sets a light, careful hand on Kurt's shoulder, and says, "Look up." Kurt does, and catches sight of the cow, and then they're both doubling over with laughter. 

"God," Kurt says, wiping his eyes. "Why did I want to come back here?" A complicated question if Blaine's ever heard one. They leave, arms slung over each other's shoulders, dropping intermittent little aftershocky chuckles behind them. 

Blaine drives Kurt home. "Hey Kurt?" Kurt, who's reaching for his seatbelt and drawing breath to thank him for the ride, pauses. Blaine taps his gloved fingers against the steering wheel. 

"Yeah?" Kurt murmurs. Their eyes meet. 

"You're exactly as tall as you always are. But you're taller than this town."


	5. The Ethical Hedonists

The Ethical Hedonists, a NYADA student group, are throwing their annual underwear party. Kurt may have trouble saying their name without rolling his eyes, but a couple people from his a cappella group are members, and he's been attending this particular event since freshman year. 

Blaine arrives at the loft at eight o'clock to pre-game and help out with last minute costume assemblage. Rachel answers the door in a black silk robe and pink curlers. "Hi, Rachel!" he says, swinging his bag down off his shoulder. "Those are great; are they part of your costume?" He indicates the curlers, thinking Rachel might be the type to go for a broad, theatrical interpretation of "chamber clothes." 

"Oh, no, just getting myself in-character!" She beams and shrugs the robe off her shoulders long enough for Blaine to get an eyeful of her 1940s bullet bra. 

"Oh my God, so pretty," Blaine coos. Rachel sparkles at him and swans off toward the kitchen, rattling off drink options over her shoulder.

Kurt and Dani call their greetings from the middle of the living room. Dani's standing on a stepstool with Kurt at her feet. She's in a knee-length [cage crinoline](http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/82416) and corset. She has omitted the period-appropriate shift, though, and is wearing only a pair of thin, nude panties liberally bedazzled with diamond- and ruby-hued plastic gemstones whorling upward and outward from her crotch. "Holy Hannah," Blaine breathes with due reverence, accepting a cider from Rachel. "Does this party we're attending have a _catwalk_?"

"You like?" Dani grins.

"Nice, uh, grasp of symbolism."

Dani cackles happily and Kurt winks at him. He's wearing distressed jeans and one of his big, bobbly brown cardigans, but Blaine is suddenly desperate to know what he's got under them. He sinks into the couch and takes a long sip of his drink.

"There," says Kurt, snipping threads and shaking out the pile of fabric in his lap. He's got a bright turquoise pincushion strapped to his wrist. "Try this on." He hands his bundle up to Dani, then stands to help her wrap it around the cage and tie it at the back. Dani bounces over to the mirror that's been hauled out of someone's bedroom and tipped against the wall, and squeaks at her reflection. She cuts an amazing silhouette. Shame to cover up the panties, but Blaine supposes she needs something she can wear on the subway.

"You need a fringe on the bottom," Rachel tells her, plopping down next to Blaine with a bottle of nail polish.

"Yes, because our aesthetic goal is 1970s lampshade," says Kurt. 

"I'm just saying. It's so swingy, take advantage!"

Dani swings her hips, and the skirt cants after her like a bell.

They bicker amiably for a few minutes. Kurt tidies his sewing supplies. Dani sits cross-legged on the floor and applies foundation while Kurt rummages through her makeup bag and hands her his suggestions. It's interesting to see Kurt with his girls, surrounded by girl things. He's brisk but sweet, sliding effortlessly and authoritatively into the role of "best gay" like hand to glove. Rachel asks him to sew the back of her bra together to make it a little more oops-proof, and he threads a needle and slips his fingers between the thin band and the smooth skin of her back without a second thought. Her robe pools around her waist, and her hair is wispy at her neck when she bends forward to give him access. Blaine feels warm, not with arousal, per se, but caught by the simple sensuality of the scene.

"You're quiet," Kurt notes, turning and smiling at him. 

"Just…second-guessing my choice a bit, I guess. I've never been to one of these parties."

"Whatever you've got will be fine. We go all out, because the day I miss an opportunity for fashion is the day after you put me in my grave, but there will be plenty of people wearing Joe Boxer smiley faces and Victoria's Secret."

"And inevitably someone dressed as Captain Underpants," Dani says.

When Blaine's answering smile is no more than half-hearted, Kurt does not ask what he's wearing under his loose, long-sleeved tee and jeans. Instead, he tilts his head at him and narrows his eyes and inquires, "What's your ideal costume?" He secures and cuts his thread with a flourish, and pats Rachel on the shoulder. "Because this household has three full closets, two chests of fabric and notions, one state-of-the-art sewing machine, and, crucially, me. We've got," he checks his watch, "an hour before we need to go anywhere. Ample…unless you're hoping for a Victorian corset with one hundred and sixty-two individually partitioned stays."

Blaine laughs genuinely. " _Someday_ I would love to try one of those on." Kurt's expression goes a little pleased and cryptic, and Blaine raises an eyebrow at him before continuing. "Well, I think I like my bottoms fine. They're—well." Taking a breath, he stands and reaches for his own belt, flicks it open and tugs his jeans down and off. Clatters out from behind the coffee table and lifts his shirt up to his navel so the group can see, above his decently muscled and darkly furred legs, his bikini briefs in baby blue cotton with a line drawing of a half hard cock silkscreened on the front. Both women burst into appreciative hoots and applause, but Kurt's single, delighted bark of laughter warms him to his toes.

"Hot," Dani declares.

Fiddling with his hem, Blaine admits, "I don't have anything up top. When I left my place I was all, ' _trans pride!_ ' and, ' _boys don't hide their chests; I'm a boy, so_ —?' but…it's been a bit of a roller coaster day."

"Legit," says Dani immediately, nodding.

"I have plenty of undershirts. Black, white, grey, peridot…?" says Kurt, tapping his finger against his lips.

"I don't—" says Blaine, and then stalls out.

Dani says, "Also, take your damned pants off, Hummel; you are now the only person in this room who's fully clothed and that's sad." Rachel snorts. Kurt ignores them.

"Ideally," Blaine says slowly, working out how to articulate it. "Kurt, do you remember what I was wearing at the club where we met?" Kurt's eyes widen a little. It's the first time either of them has mentioned Rosy's, or what they did there together, pretty much since that first coffee date.

"Fishnet," says Kurt. "Um, sleeveless."

"Yeah. Which wouldn't work tonight, because not underwear, but the reason I liked that look was the genderfuck. I love passing as a guy; I love that I _can_ , when I want to, but I also…sometimes I also love fucking it up? Especially the closer I get to skin. Sometimes I feel—I feel more complicated, the closer I get to skin."

"I think we all do, some way or other," Rachel says. Kurt glances at her in surprise.

"Some way or other," Kurt echoes.

"And in public, I mean, certain spaces, playing with the breakpoint between passing and not, you know, messing around with expectation."

Kurt grins at that. "Finding the double-take." Blaine grins back.

Rachel is chewing her lip and looking speculative. "Just to be clear, you're looking for something femme, like a bralette?" 

He shrugs one shoulder. "I guess? Or maybe like a little undershirt or something." 

"Hm. Hang on." She vanishes behind the partition at one end of the loft. 

"You _do not_ have to wear anything she unearths," Kurt assures him.

Rachel pokes her head back around the curtain. "Blaine, could you come here, please?"

Blaine finds Rachel standing next to her dresser, turning a scrap of fabric over in her hands. "This is really girly," she says with some worry in her voice, "so I don't know if you'll want it. You don't have to. I swear I wouldn't have thought of it, except you just said 'genderfuck' and I thought, paired with—that—" she waves her hand toward Blaine's cocky panties, "it would be really…"

"Kinda perfect," Blaine finishes. "Oh my God. Ha! Wow."

Rachel's face lights up, like she's actually shocked to have gotten something right. "Really?"

"Let me try it on. I'm an A-cup, but my rib cage is way bigger than yours. I don't want to stretch—"

"Oh, don't worry about that; we'll get Kurt to add a ribbon. I never wear it anymore, anyway; I don't even know why I brought it to college." Rachel realizes Blaine isn't stripping out of his shirt, and abruptly spins, putting her back to him with an, "Oh! Should I go away?"

"I'll just be a minute."

"Sure!" Then from the far side of the curtain, "Gone!" She might be the most adorable awkward person Blaine has ever met.

He slips on the bra: blue cotton that's nearly an exact match for his briefs, but with tiny rosebuds scattered across the fabric. It clasps, barely. He never wears these things anymore; the underwire digs into his ribs, and the cups don't seem to match his shape very well—which makes sense given that he spends half his time in a binder. But—he steps in front of Rachel's mirror, and, yes. In the skimpy garments, his physiology is obvious; equally obvious is his disinterest in hiding or even downplaying it. Yet, to his own eye, at least, he doesn't look remotely womanly. Instead, the silly little bra draws attention to the ways in which he is an aberration, a puzzle. His hair—both the stuff on his head and his body, his sleek, hard-won musculature, and, most of all, his carriage, bespeak his devotion to masculine aesthetics. He feels pretty and handsome. Relational and strange. 

Centred and satisfied, yet nervous to step back outside the curtain. He tugs on his straps, scoops and rearranges his breasts as best he can, and then spends one more minute standing in front of the mirror, trying to arrange his face and posture into a picture of confidence. "Okay, turn on the burlesque music!" he calls out, and his friends immediately start up a cacophony of asynchronous bow-chickas, and Blaine comes out from behind the partition in a fit of laughter.

This time Kurt's eyes really widen. But Dani shrieks, "Oh my god, Blaine, _get it_ ," and starts clapping loudly, and Kurt joins her after just a beat as he starts to smile and shake his head. Rachel appears pleased with herself. She glances back and forth between Blaine and Kurt with a small, surprised smile.

"It fits?" Rachel asks.

"Eh, tight, but…"

"May I?" Blaine lets Kurt come over and stand behind him so he can unclasp the bra and fiddle with its ends to determine what kind of length he needs to add. Then, while Blaine puts his shirt back on, he's off to his notions chest for a piece of stiff ribbon, which, after some humming and staring, he ties in a flat, streamlined little bow, not unlike some of the bow ties in Blaine's closet, and attaches to Rachel's bra with a swift, clattering zigzag stitch at his sewing machine. 

Part of Blaine kind of loves that Rachel's tiny bra needs a big, blatant extension to fit around his chest.

And then there's hair to be styled—Peggy Carter for Rachel and "I'm aiming for Paul Newman circa _The Young Philadelphians_ , does that sound right?" for Blaine. Kurt's do is jaunty, but closer to sea level than usual.

While Kurt is fussing with Blaine's coif, Dani's girlfriend Aisha bustles in with Elliott in tow, the former in men's linen smallclothes and buckled Pilgrim heels, the latter in head-to-toe red flannel with a butt flap. 

"There's my favorite badass rock god," Kurt tells him.

And then they're all spilling out to the street and down the block to the subway. 

In the foyer of the party house, Kurt finally makes his reveal: a [1940s Jockey A-shirt](https://www.flickr.com/photos/christianmontone/4088533150/in/photostream/) and [Y-front briefs](https://www.flickr.com/photos/christianmontone/4088535836/in/photostream/) to match Rachel's rocket bra. The statuesque, yet excruciatingly wholesome, figure he cuts makes Blaine narrowly escape swallowing his tongue. The hair suddenly makes sense. He looks like a model in an ad for laundry detergent, until he catches Blaine looking and waggles his eyebrows and channels Clark Gable. Fuck. Blaine can't stop smiling. It's a much simpler costume than Blaine expected, though, and he laughs at himself for building up the suspense in his own head. He wonders if Kurt has test photos left over from previous years' costumes. 

They are fashionably late enough that the party is swinging. As promised, there's plenty of run-of-the-mill sexy lingerie on display, and guys in charcoal boxer briefs, but Blaine also catches sight of a bra studded with LEDs, a stunning codpiece shaped like a trilobite, and a man with long, honey-colored hair pulling off Loana the Fair One's doe-skin bikini with conviction. Kurt and Rachel spend a lot of time together, hamming up their act as the perfect post-war couple, calling each other baby and toots and busting out a Lindy Hop any time a remotely workable beat comes over the stereo.

Later, Kurt and Blaine dance together, too. Before Kurt can raise his hands Blaine lifts his own, reels Kurt in by the waist, then slides his palms up his back. He feels Kurt's slight start of surprise, but his recovery is so smooth Blaine mightn't have noticed had he not been waiting for it. Before the next downbeat lands, Kurt has his arms draped gracefully over Blaine's shoulders. It's a slow, mellow tune, good for swaying, not swinging, so Blaine leads them in a lazy, incremental arc around the room and taps out the piano melody against Kurt's cotton-covered ribs.

"You look phenomenal," Kurt murmurs.

"Rachel saved the day. And you. I'm having a great time."

"I honestly didn't think her grasp of visual humor was that good."

"You look amazing, too. Where did you even find this?" Blaine wonders, tugging lightly on Kurt's undershirt.

"Oh, there's a whole website devoted to it. Pyjamas, boxers, stockings…"

"Of course there is. I think I need the link, please."

"Sure. They've got amazing retro swimsuits you'd get a kick out of." 

They chat and smile and sing swoonily at each other as the song winds down, and break apart only when the speakers boom with an old Nicki Minaj tune that requires hands free for maximum booty-shaking.

Blaine stays in the moment and doesn't overthink it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Super Bass](https://youtu.be/4JipHEz53sU), Nicki Minaj


	6. Noodles

Kurt's been auditioning. It's dire. 

On Wednesday nights he and Blaine often meet for an early dinner at a noodle bar in Soho, before Blaine has his evening percussion seminar and Kurt heads uptown for his diner shift. The restaurant is crowded tonight, but the server knows their order, and they snag the last two adjacent stools at the counter under the window. Kurt droops over his bowl. Blaine glances at him, nudges their shared tray of garnishes closer to his hand, and concentrates on stripping a sprig of basil into his phở. After a minute of inhaling the fragrant steam, Kurt straightens his spine, splits his chopsticks with a crack, and stabs into the bean sprouts. "You'll never guess what I heard from a casting director this afternoon."

"What's that?"

"I'm too good."

Blaine fumbles his spoon. "What?"

"It was for the _Godspell_ revival. They've already cast their lead." Kurt turns to him with a cynical smile. "It's Evan Walker; name ring any bells?"

"Evan…oh, my God. The blond one from—"

"The Next Available Boy Band, yeah. Stunt casting."

"Huh," Blaine sounds bemused, more than anything. "He has theatre training?" 

"Elementary school Christmas pageant not included?"

"Oh, boy."

"I tortured myself watching interview clips on the train. I'm sure he's a sweetheart." Kurt waves his hand. "Smart enough to be charming, talented enough to avoid embarrassment, predictable enough to be…predictable."

"All right. So if they've cast Evan as Jesus, why can't you be Judas? God, I'd kill to hear you sing those songs. I'm getting shivers thinking about it. What the hell—too _good_ , you said?"

A snort. "Too singular, was the word he used. But I saw the way they looked at me while I was singing. I'm good. I know it. _They_ fucking know it. Welcome to my sob story." He rubs a hand over his eyes. Weariness, though; not tears. "I'm not right, by which they mean too gay, for the leads, but I'm too strong, too compelling, for the supporting roles. So they hire a bland celebrity cash cow, and then they fret that he'll be upstaged."

"Idiots! Short-sighted, pea-brained, lily-livered—!" Blaine shoves a mouthful of noodles into his face, as if to prevent himself from saying something _really_ offensive. Kurt can't help but grin. 

"Thanks." He shakes himself and digs into his dinner, and they spend the next few minutes in companionably annoyed silence. 

"I do kind of like his band name."

"I know. God dammit."

They're mostly done with their phở when Blaine blows out a gusty breath and admits: "That's why I'm not a performance major. Mi sob story es tu sob story."

Kurt turns and looks at Blaine for a long minute, eyes roaming over his face intently enough that Blaine starts to squirm. "That's criminal." Quiet and sober, with a frown line between his brows. Not the fiery, reflexive defense of a friend, but like a real opinion. "I've seen an awful lot of performers, Blaine, and I know charisma when I see it. Yours is…not average."

"Oh. Thank you. That means a lot, coming from you." Blaine wants to meet Kurt's eyes and can't seem to manage it. "But I had to make a choice, you know, and I guess…I guess the year I made that choice I was less interested in being visible. Or, less sure about it. And anyway, I wanted roles that just weren't there. And roles that were there, but nobody would see as mine. And I watched my friends having the same problems, and I'm good at composition and arranging; I really love it; so I figured, all right. Let me make the damned roles."

"Promise me," says Kurt, "you'll write them for yourself. Someday."

Blaine meets Kurt's gaze. "Only if you'll let me write something for you, too."

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [On the Willows](https://youtu.be/FO6r_hajQvM), Wallace Smith


	7. If you were famous

Elliott's great aunt dies and bequeaths him her banjo.

Initially excited, by the time One Three Hill's next rehearsal rolls around, Elliott's about ready to fling it into the dumpster. "I'm awful!" he complains to Kurt while Dani's plucking curiously at the thing. "I didn't realize it was so different from guitar!" 

"Bring it to potluck night," says Kurt. "Sam's coming to town." 

Sam is in fact coming to town because Mercedes is coming to town, and Sam doesn't miss chances to see his old flame anytime she's north of LA. And their presence means Tina's taking the train from Providence, and of course Artie will be there, which will make it a complete original New Directions reunion. Plus Jesse and Aisha, plus Blaine. 

Kurt makes a note to tell the locals to bring finger food; they can sit on pillows in the living room instead of trying to squash everyone around their rickety dining table. It's good to be young and bendy. Someday Kurt will be rich enough for a proper table and a proper room to put it in, and then he can just let his guest list curate its damned self.

"Sam plays banjo?" Elliott asks. 

"He's a music teacher who loves country and bluegrass. He'll at least have some good resources."

"Hey, c'mere, guys, I figured out how to play 'Uckboy'!" Dani calls. She starts strumming vigorously and bopping her head. Elliott blinks. 

"I am not singing 'Uckboy' with you, Dani," Kurt says. Gifted songwriter and apparently a banjo savant, and what does she do with it? Pig Latin.

* * *

Potluck nights at the loft don't always devolve into sing-alongs, but this particular set of guests makes it inevitable. Elliott has brought his banjo for inspection, and Dani and Sam both have their guitars. Blaine and Sam haven't met before. Blaine wonders helplessly if all Kurt's friends are this cute and talented. Sam's laid-back and kind of goofy, and spends most of dinner making lovestruck faces at Mercedes and trying to make her laugh at his impressions, but as soon as the plates are cleared he picks up the banjo and casually starts tuning it by ear. 

"You use your nails, like this," he says and demonstrates to Elliott, who plunks down beside him on the couch. "Or the picks, but you need a bigger set." He nods at Elliott's thick fingers. Banjo picks are worn like rings, and Elliott's aunt had tiny hands. Sam finishes tuning, strums experimentally, then launches into the title credit song from Disney's _Robin Hood_ , fumbling a little as he gets used to the fret length. And then everybody's whistling and finding the lyrics on their phones and singing along with the ooh-da-lallies. Elliott beams. 

Blaine slides his glance over to see Mercedes' expression and finds the future written all over it. He wonders if he's the only one who can, because of his position halfway between insider and outsider. He catches Kurt's eye. They have a little moment of eyebrow-waggling communication, wordless: no, Kurt sees it, too, and doesn't know how it can work, but can't help hoping anyway. Blaine's little insta-crush on Sam softens into something poignant and mellow.

As soon as the tune ends, people start calling out the names of other songs, and Sam obliges gamely. Dani picks up her guitar to help out. After they finish a howled rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow," Blaine hoists himself up to fetch Kurt and Rachel's keyboard from its wobbly stand, puts it on the floor, and sprawls out on his tummy in front of it. It's a cheap thing, full-sized, but not touch-sensitive, adequate for vocal practice. He sets the sound to "upright bass" and carries on.

They pause to refill drinks and break out the cupcakes.

Mercedes tells stories about touring and recording and trying to find songwriters she likes. She's frustrated by the subject matter her producers keep plying her with: niche-y, predictable gospel tracks, and dreary break-up songs, like the only saleable images they can envision for a woman of her stature are "Aretha copycat" or "Black Adele." 

Kurt and Blaine meet each other's eyes again, catching and holding.

Tina's thoughts are running in parallel. "So write your own," she says. "You were great at it in high school." 

"I've been thinking about it," Mercedes admits. "I went through my old notebooks the other day, and a lot of it's super cheesy and embarrassing, but there's some stuff I still like. I mean, it's how I started. It's just as soon as I started making bank they started pushing me toward all this pre-written stuff."

"Into the mold with you!" Artie scolds, making shooing motions.

"And I let it happen, because I was so busy, and now I feel so out of practice. I'm thinking of taking a poetry or songwriting class, if I can find one. Maybe something on sound mixing, too." 

They bat ideas around for a while; Blaine recommends a couple online programs he likes. Dani tells them about a medieval French lyric class she audited once, and they cajole her into playing some of her final translation project. "Okay, here's '21st C. Trobaritz,'" she tells them, and sings,

 _"I ain't got no lute_  
_And you might have a balcony_  
_But it's 51st floor, with a view of Manhattan_  
_And if I stood below_  
_With my amp and guitar_  
_And I bellowed_  
_My voice still won't carry that far._  
_So thank God for Youtube…"_

"Play something you wrote," Kurt tells Blaine, after they stop clapping and giggling over Dani's lyrical prowess. He's on the floor with one leg stretched out in front of him and the other propped up, a half-glass of New York riesling balanced on his knee. He smiles at Blaine, blinking slowly like an untroubled cat.

Blaine blushes hard. "Kurt!" He's not here to show off.

Elliott says, "I'm working on a new one! It's called 'My First Gray Hair.'"

"Yes. Let us have it," says Blaine.

"Oh my God," says Jesse, talking over him. "You and Rachel are songwriting soulmates!"

Rachel, who's sitting in Jesse's lap, reaches back and shoves his head. "I've always written songs that feel immediate and personal to me!" Mercedes cackles—a sound Blaine's coming to adore.

"First songs you ever wrote," Dani demands of the room at large. "I want to hear Mercedes' high school stuff." More giggling and sly, shared glances among the New Directions alumni.

" _Mama said get your ass out of bed, I said hell to the no!_ " belts Mercedes. Blaine and Elliott jump, and rest of the Ohioans double over.

"Ima need the banjo again," Sam says soberly. Elliott obliges.

"Too bad Santana isn't here; hers was the best."

"Ex _cuse_ me?"

After they've gone through that weird little catalogue, attention's on Blaine again. "Oh, God, okay," he says, laughing. "I need to divide this question into periods. Like, the one I wrote and performed for my parents in the back yard in second grade, or the first thing I wrote as an angsty teenager when I got my own keyboard, or my first pretentious music student composition…."

"Angsty teenage Blaine!" Kurt, Tina and Dani chorus.

"Urgh. Um, all right, I think it was…" He tests a few chords, then starts singing on the upbeat, " _It's a long, hard road, and sometimes I must walk alone, but I can bear that load…._ Oh my God, I can't even remember the next…. _But what you gotta understand about me, is I'm gonna grow up, and I'm gonna get free, hey!_ "

"We could have sung that shit at regionals," says Artie.

"Or sold it to Disney," Tina counters. Her tone is teasing, but her grin sincere and maybe a little admiring. It's not a bad hook.

Emboldened, Blaine lets his fingers drift into a new key and a slower, contemplative tempo. He's more confident in his skills as a composer and arranger than a lyricist these days—definitely not singing every verse of this one—but he's moved to give it to Mercedes. He noodles and gently riffs around the melody for a couple minutes—long enough for the chatter around him to resume, and his singing starts more as background than performance. But he catches Mercedes' eye.

 _"When I was small my hair was glossy black_  
_It curled around my face_  
_My nanay combed it back and tied it up_  
_with ribbons, holding every strand in place._  
_She was so neat, she was so pretty,_  
_every story's perfect martyr,_  
_songbird's heart and small concerns_  
_And rebel past left_  
_Untranslated…"_  


He sings to Mercedes, but he can feel the warmth of Kurt's attention, his curiosity. They're sitting close together, with Sam and Tina rounding out their side of the coffee table. By the second verse Tina is harmonizing softly and as naturally as if they've been doing it together for years. Sam's guitar meets him on every chord change. God, Kurt's friends are amazing. Can he please keep them all?

After the song ends, Kurt gets up and dims the overhead lights. "It's snowing!" he reports. It prompts a flurry of exclamations and oohing and travel plan adjustments.

Mercedes leans down to say to Blaine, "Gimme your email address, boo. We should talk more."

* * *

In March, One Three Hill records a new demo and in April they book a gig at a scrappy, cramped club in Harlem. Dani's in charge of drumming up hype on social media while Kurt and Elliott bribe all their friends and colleagues into showing up. Blaine and Sunny ride uptown on a wet, sparkling spring morning to plaster the Columbia campus with flyers.

Sunny decides it's the perfect opportunity to quiz Blaine on his love life. "So tell me about this Kurt guy. You never mention him."

Blaine draws breath, then eyes Sunny suspiciously. He literally just finished relating a story about sixteen-year-old Kurt's homemade kimchi misadventure. Sunny bats her eyelashes. Blaine exhales with a whuff. "Am I that bad?"

"No, baby, you know you're so good. But I think you've got it bad." Blaine chews his lip and stares out the window, watching the dark walls of the train tunnel whip past. Sunny nudges his shoulder. "I like him, you know. At first I thought he was weird and aloof, but at the Christmas party he was goofy and sweet to me, and the way he labeled his cookies was adorable. And the way he looks at you, Blaine…."

Blaine shakes his head. "I'm not sure."

"Oh?"

"I—yes, he's amazing. I've never met anyone like him, and I love talking to him, and sometimes it feels like we're so in tune, it blows me away, I can hardly believe…sometimes…"

"Mmhm. But?"

"He's gay, Sunny. He's really clear cut about it." Blaine holds up a forestalling hand as Sunny's expression darkens. "And I'm not trans—like that. I'm not just a guy. I use those words sometimes, because I'm loose with labels; I kind of like having a collection of them instead of just one, because _that_ feels more authentic to me than, like, picking one box and spending my whole life worrying about where its edges are. 

"And that matters, okay? He has a type, when he talks about exes and celebrity crushes, and I'm—it's okay, you know. You want what you want. 

"And. Even if he did decide that maybe I'm cute enough for a second look…I'm not sure I want to be his experiment."

Blaine's been there—been the one doing the experimenting. He's grateful to his high school girlfriend, more than he can say, for her sweetness and acceptance, while he flailed through his own personal swamp-hell of hormones and expectations and confusion. But he's twenty-two, now, knows who he is, and wants to say he's more protective of his heart and his time. He isn't sure it's true.

Sunny gives him a long look. "Fair," she says finally. "Got an experiment for _you_ , though. Wear your V-striped button-down to the show. The navy and white one that makes your shoulders look amazing."

"Oh my god, Sunny, please stop helping."

The train lurches to a halt, and Sunny swings around the pole on her way out, vamping at him over her shoulder. "Fiiiine." Troublemaker. 

He wears the shirt.

The bar is encouragingly crowded by the time One Three Hill takes the stage. Dani, their best talker by orders of magnitude, got them a good slot: late, but not too late. Light from the funky wall sconces glints off glassware and jewelry, and the crowd is happily tipsy and ready to dance. 

They're such a _pretty_ band. Blaine imagines being just another anonymous fan with their poster on his wall after they've topped the charts, picking his favourite member based on looks and scraps of interviews, and having intense conversations with his friends about their favs, like every kid picks their favourite Beatle or boy band member and learns everything about them and defends them against all comers. Elliott: dominatingly tall and strong-featured, with his stadium voice, could so easily position himself as the frontman, and never let anyone else get a note in edgewise, yet he blends himself seamlessly into the group, howling like a rock star when it's his turn, but falling back and supporting Kurt or Dani with the sweetest, subtlest harmonies whenever they take the lead. Dani, with her huge smile and sensational musicianship, making the queer girls gasp for air every time she slaps her bass against her thighs. And Kurt, mesmerizing, diamond-sharp and strange under the cheap stage lights, like he's on loan from another world. Blaine's fav.

Kurt steps up to the mike, cool as shit. 

They play "Georgiana's Coffee Order" and "Callous Love" and "Do Me Good," three of Dani's tunes in the mode she calls "bossy dyke rock," and then two covers, swoony Florence + the Machine and cheeky David Bowie, and then, after a short interlude of throat porn wherein Kurt downs half his water bottle, Kurt declares, "And now, lovelies and gentlecreatures, we have not one, but two world premieres to play for you tonight! Tune number one is called "If You Were Famous," music and lyrics by our brilliant friend Blaine Anderson!" The crowd shouts good-naturedly, amused by the song title and Kurt's hype-man antics. 

Blaine jitters next to the bar.

It is explicitly not the promised material written just for Kurt, fulfilling the pact between them. But it's been ages since he tried to score for a rock band, and he loves it. They claim to like the results. This one he came up with at the final hour, during a pre-dawn jog through Washington Square Park; then he perpetrated the ultimate artist cliché by literally scratching it down on a napkin at OatMeals. If the performance goes well, he'll have the napkin framed, cinnamon smudge and all. Profound it ain't, but it's funny, weird and relatable, and every time Blaine's hummed it to himself in the past three days, he's cracked a smile.

Kurt leads, taking the part of the adoring lover describing his beloved like a Hollywood idol. He swings his hips, flashes his cheekiest smile, and sings his heart out, spinning Blaine's tale of a subway staircase meet-cute into an exuberant red carpet fantasy. The song peels into its noisy, stomp-clap chorus and the crowd picks up the beat immediately.

 _"If you were famous, yeah I’d be your fanboy_  
_Go downtown on a weekday night_  
_To stand in the crowd and scream your name!"_  


Kurt winks at him. His eyeliner slants out in a subtle cat's eye.

Blaine's heart is in his throat. It is the silliest song, nothing soul-baring or even terribly poetic, though that bass line in Dani's hands is catchy as heck. But it's his, and Kurt is singing it, and it feels like a cord stretching from his mind to Kurt's, binding them together in an act of creation. He giggle-snorts out loud. The whole club is jumping madly up and down under the lights.

 _"When you come on the show_  
_They'd all want to know,_  
_Yeah, we all wanna know_  
_So have you met him yet? (Who?)_  
_The love of your life?_  
_Does he light up your life?_  
_You say, you know that I like_  
_My privacy, a little mystery_  
_But I'll tell you one thing_  
_About the light of my life:_  
_Yeah, he's out there tonight._  
_He's out there tonight."_  


* * *

('Uckboy,' whose whole chorus is pig Latin, is the bane of Kurt's existence. He is SO AGGRIEVED when they finally play it for an audience and it becomes their number one request. 

But he secretly loves hamming up his role of persecuted artiste in concert and then he improvises a deadpan, "Oy vey," one night that instantly becomes the most important part of the song. People gif it on Tumblr. Strangers on the internet fall in love with Kurt and his oy vey the same way people fell for Paul McCartney over his little "o-o-o-o-o-oh" in "Eight Days a Week."

Rachel buys him new sunglasses and a giant hat just in case the paps start chasing him.

Elliott eventually gives the banjo to Dani outright, claiming his great aunt's picks don't fit his fingers anyway.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Robin Hood & Little John](https://youtu.be/QLhYSw67pdg), Roger Miller  
> [Man of Constant Sorrow](https://youtu.be/YBVnKYOvWcs), Alison Krauss & Union Station Band


	8. Turkey soup

Blaine cancels an outing, claiming a bad cold. Kurt, who wasn't that interested in the film their friends picked, asks if he can come over with soup. 

"You don't have to. I'm terrible company."

"I know I don't have to. I'm asking if it's okay if I do. I know sometimes when I'm sick all I want is to be left alone to sweat out my misery in peace."

After a long silence, Blaine says Kurt can come over.

Kurt arrives an hour later, all solicitous bustle and bags dangling off elbows. Blaine, in sweatpants and hoodie and anti-skid slipper socks he usually eschews because who wants socks that prohibit sock-surfing?, trails him into the kitchen and watches him unpack. 

"I'm not really that sick," he admits, feeling a bit guilty. "I'm just having a shitty day."

"Well, turkey soup sometimes works on those, too. Toast?"

"Yes, please."

"Go sit, honey."

Kurt brings the soup and two liberally buttered slices of sourdough over to the couch on a tray. He sinks down next to Blaine, close enough to nudge their knees together. His hair is styled for a night out, but his sweater is soft and his jeans have a hole in the knee that Blaine wants to trace with his finger. He smells amazing. 

Blaine crunches into his toast while it's hot, and moans. The ratio of buttery crunch to steaming, doughy center is perfect. Why does his own toaster love Kurt more than him? The soup is fragrant with lemon and bay, and has magical properties: if Blaine tucks his knees up and balances the bowl under his chin for long enough, all his problems will molecularly bond to the steam and be carried up and away.

Kurt busies himself stirring his own soup, spoons and slurps, and smacks his lips in satisfaction. He's such an endearing weirdo. In public, with strangers' eyes on him, he can be fussy and officious about his food; he knows the name and position of every fork in the queen's dinner service, yet in private his manners are adorably awful.

Blaine grins, and then sighs. "Thank you."

Kurt bumps shoulders, careful not to cause a spill. "Of course."

His silence is undemanding. Sometimes shitty days are just shitty days and why talk about them when you can just eat soup? But after a minute, Blaine finds he wants to say it after all: "It's so dumb. It's nothing. I overheard some nasty effemiphobia on the train." Kurt twitches against him. "It's so depressing to hear that from gay guys. Hit me harder than it should have, that's all."

"Should have? Screw _should have_."

"I just wish I had a thicker skin about that sort of thing by now. Or could fell them in their tracks with the perfect comeback. Like you."

Kurt smiles, but it's lopsided and bitter. "Were they talking about you?"

"No. No. I had my head down; I was reading. They were gossiping about someone they knew."

"Charming."

"It still felt personal."

A pause, as they drain their bowls. 

Frowning, picking his words, Kurt says, "You know, you don't even read to me as feminine, really, unless you're aiming for it."

"That…thanks, but that doesn't really help. I am feminine, Kurt, in some fairly undeniable ways, not all of which I want to change. And sometimes it really fucking sucks to be reminded of how unattractive that is to most of the people who are attractive to me."

Kurt visibly startles at that. "Wait, what now? Who says—"

Blaine sets his bowl on the coffee table, pulls the afghan down off the back of the couch and tucks it around himself. 

It's a weary old meme that queer people don't come out once and done, but over and over and over, to family and friends and classmates and colleagues and doctors and DMV clerks. What nobody ever told Blaine was how much time he could expect to spend coming out to the same people. I'm queer. Hey, remember how I'm queer? Yeah, well, you're talking like you forgot. Uh, Mom, I think I'm actually a different kind of queer? I'm sorry you just got used to the first kind. I'm queer, but that thing you keep saying about "us queers" does not apply. Let me explain. Let me explain better. I don't know how to explain.

Blaine feels his forehead pulling into a frown, and tries to smooth it. Kurt's gaze is so attentive, his body language so warm and present, that it hurts a little, and Blaine has to shut his eyes.

He swallows and says, "I've slept with women. I'm attracted to gay men, but I've never had sex with one. I basically came out as a butch lesbian in high school. I knew I was butch, and as far as the rest of the planet's concerned there's no 'butch' without 'dyke' immediately following. And it didn't feel quite right, but I just thought, okay, what _does_ , when you're sixteen? I've probably always been more suggestible than is good for me. I even had a girlfriend.

"And then I got through sixteen and went to college and figured out there were other options besides butch dyke that made a hell of a lot more sense, but were also kind of…kind of worse, too, in a way. Dating women was so easy. The prospect of finding a guy who could deal with me both clothed and naked just seemed impossible."

Kurt makes a small noise in his throat at that; it could be sympathy or protest or acknowledgement. Blaine opens his eyes, but only to glare ruefully at the crochetwork in his lap.

"I'm mostly fine with it, you know. Now. I have such great friends, they love me, we go out, I have fun. I'm not usually—I guess the thing today just triggered a dumb little pity spiral. I've mostly stopped expecting to find real love."

He stops talking, and the silence ticks out, but Kurt offers no platitude or verbal comfort of any kind. No, "I'm sure there's someone out there for you," or, "But you deserve it!" or even, "Well, that sucks." Blaine is so grateful for that that his throat goes funny. Instead, Kurt reaches over and uncurls Blaine's hand from the edge of the afghan. He threads their fingers together and frowns—at the remote control in the middle of the coffee table, not at Blaine.

It's a complicated expression, flickering, maybe, with recollections of faded hurts and wishes of his own. Without letting go of his hand, Kurt leans forward to set down his soup and grab the remote, then scoots back and scrunches down and rests his head on Blaine's shoulder. Blaine untangles the blanket and throws it over both of them. Kurt queues up a movie and Blaine doesn't ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gender Blender](https://youtu.be/qvS3-1KaVa0), KT


	9. Green glitter

He's restless. Irritable. Three weeks have passed since Kurt sat on Blaine's couch and silently watched a movie while inwardly shaking with revelation. He's seen Blaine exactly once since that night. June is always unreasonably and unhelpfully hectic; it's provided plenty of excuses for Kurt's avoidance. He's processing.

It's beginning to feel wrong, though. Kurt didn't realize how often they see each other until he scaled it back.

Earlier that afternoon, Blaine texted to ask if Kurt wanted to go clubbing that night. "Fuck it," he said. "I'm going to Rosy's, where I aim to pick up. You in?" It made Kurt snappish. He declined, claiming tersely that he had a costuming project to finish. True to promise, he's been sulking his way through an armload of lace detailing longer than his small intestine for the last hour.

Rachel's out with Jesse. She wouldn't put up with his moody nonsense anyway.

It's nearly eleven when Kurt sighs, shoves the ribbon away, and puts his face in his hands. Then he gets up, changes his shirt, and grabs his keys.

There's no sign of Mama Rose in the foyer of the club tonight. No demigod to smooth the way. Kurt descends the stairs, past the murals that have been painted fresh this year.

Blaine is there, dancing with a stranger. He's butched out tonight, full binder under his tight black tank, black jeans, distressed leather belt. And a line of blue-green glitter slashed high across each cheekbone, whoopsie.

Blaine doesn't spot Kurt right away. Kurt hangs back, caught on the cusp of action, watching him through the flickering lights and waves of bodies, and he feels like the king of fools, having waited so long to name his desire for this beautiful, gentle, cheeky, complicated person lost in the music just a few steps away.

Kurt comes like a supplicant. "May I cut in?"

Blaine stares up at him, his mouth round with surprise. "Kurt?"

The man Blaine's dancing with glances between the two of them, hand on Blaine's shoulder. "You know this guy?" he asks. He looks friendly, but he's clearly making sure Blaine's happy with the interruption before he abandons him.

"Yeah, yes," Blaine stutters. "Thank you for the dance."

Kurt gives the man a nod, not ungrateful for his courtesy. He glides off into the crowd, leaving Kurt and Blaine alone.

"What the hell, Kurt?"

Kurt stands still in the middle of the floor, hands at his sides. "I'm a jealous idiot without a clue what I'm doing," he says.

"Jealous," Blaine echoes.

Kurt nods, his throat tightening as if he's about to cry. "Dance with me?" Gracefully, Blaine loops his arms around Kurt's neck. Kurt sighs and puts his hands on Blaine's back.

For another eight measures, Kurt lets the song twine around them, and then, shaking only a little, he says, "Blaine, I had a moment a few weeks ago. I guess it was the culmination of a lot of moments, and it's taken me so long to realize, and stop being scared, because—because I think I've been looking for you forever. And you've been right here. You're my best friend and my favorite person, and you're _beautiful_ , and I am a colossal idiot, because—because—"

Blaine listens to this quietly, head bent so he can hear Kurt's voice over the noise of the club; Kurt can't see his eyes. When Kurt falls silent, Blaine keeps dancing. He smooths his hands over Kurt's shirt, almost absentmindedly. On the club speakers, Andrew Eldritch's anguished baritone ( _Come in, I think you're beautiful / I think you're beautiful, beautiful_ ) fades into Lana Del Rey. Dancers all around them pull each other closer.

Blaine pulls back. He says: "Last time we were here, you made me come, but you didn't kiss me. You left me waiting in the lobby."

"I did."

"So this time I think you should kiss me, and then take me home."

At Kurt's silent nod, Blaine lifts one forearm off Kurt's shoulder and brings his hand up to hold his neck and jaw. His hand is warm and just barely pricked with sweat. Kurt follows the gentle tug—no more than an encouraging flex of his fingertips—and fits his mouth over Blaine's. The contact zings through him, scalp to groin to toes, and he inhales sharply. He hasn't kissed anyone in so long. It's always thrilling, the first kiss with someone new, every sense heightened, every molecule in his body quivering with attention and fascination.

Blaine's lips are soft and responsive and assured; the give and take between them is as natural as anything Kurt has ever experienced, and it makes Kurt's heart, already pounding with nerves, feel warm and heavy in his chest. Then Blaine's smile steals into the kiss, and Kurt smiles back helplessly, still flush against him, and his heart eases, and it's Blaine, dear, amazing Blaine and nobody else in his arms, and Kurt is thankful. He wraps his arms around Blaine's back, palming the smooth angles of his shoulder blades. "Hi there." Eye contact at such close range is always weird for Kurt, but Blaine's gaze is heartbreakingly open.

"Okay," Blaine whispers. "One down."

"Let's—" Kurt swallows. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

They take the train home. Blaine's place is marginally closer, but still a long ride. It's a strange pause—the intense, anticipatory hustle of exiting the club, the need to be in private. The train is crowded, given it's still early, so there are things they can't say. Kurt clutches Blaine's hand. Strokes his thumb shyly over Blaine's knuckles. Blaine has questions he's desperate to ask, but the train as it runs through this part of town shrieks like a banshee, and they aren't questions he wants to yell inches from Kurt's eardrum.

So he plays with Kurt's fingers, stroking them one at a time in a way he learnt from an old theatre friend. Even without oil or lotion, the slow massage makes Kurt's eyelashes flutter and his head loll against Blaine's shoulder.

Blaine studies those square hands. Blaine's own are not slender or delicate, and decades of piano practice have made them very strong, but they're still dwarfed by Kurt's. Over the last year and a half, Blaine has seen Kurt's hands soothe rattled friends after bad auditions, wield a Santoku knife with professional speed, apply eyeliner in a flawless cat's eye, transform a wrinkled pile of fabric into a smartly pleated pair of shorts. Once, on a night that might as well have been a dream, they pressed a butterfly vibe between Blaine's legs and made him come in the shadowy hallway of a dance club. Blaine has tried hard, since then, not to imagine them doing it again. He hasn't entirely succeeded, and now he can no longer help it: how would Kurt's fingers feel, slipping underneath his layers this time, and touching him gently or implacably, skin on flushed skin? He whimpers quietly, and Kurt turns his head and meets his eyes, and Blaine cannot kiss him again, not here, or he'll climb into his lap and cling until they miss their train stop. Astonishingly, the heat in Kurt's eyes tells him he is not alone.

* * *

At last they're through the door of Blaine's apartment, slapping it shut and falling into each other's arms.

"Is Sunny here?"

"Out with Helena. All weekend."

Blaine pushes Kurt against the door and kisses him. It isn't the sort of kiss polite people have in public. Kurt wraps his arms about Blaine and brings his mouth close to his ear. "What do you want?"

In answer, Blaine walks them down the short hall to his bedroom. It's a tiny space, holding only Blaine's double bed, a dresser and clothes rail, but neat as a pin. Blaine gives Kurt a firm, guided push to sit on the mattress, and kneels in front of him, fingertips slipping down his chest to his belt buckle. His lips are red. "I don't give a fuck what else we do as long as you let me put my mouth on your cock."

Kurt, addled from those kisses, gasps, "You want that?"

Blaine looks up. He moves his hand to grip Kurt's thigh. "Kurt. I've never done it before. I've wanted this since I was thirteen. I have _practiced_ on _fruit_. Please…." 

Kurt snorts in surprise, and sees lust warring with laughter on Blaine's face. In the soft light of his bedroom lamp, he's so sexy he makes Kurt's mouth dry, with his bare arms, and snug black tank all patchy with sweat, and his sculpted curls beginning to misbehave. Spare, dark stubble frames his mouth, finer than Kurt's own. Kurt flicks his thumb against Blaine's cheek and it comes away smudged with glitter.

Blaine's eyes widen, and then he slides his hands up the sides of Kurt's thighs and clunks his forehead down on Kurt's knee. "I'm still covered in glitter. I'm going to get glitter all over your dick."

"Well. Glitter might make my dick a little _too_ fabulous."

"Oh my _God_." He swats at him weakly, then tips back and starts to rise to his feet. "I'll just wash up…."

"I could use a shower," says Kurt, catching and holding Blaine's hand before it leaves his thigh. "Want to join?"

It slows them down, which is good. Blaine pulls his tank over his head, then pauses with his fingertips curled under the elastic of his binder, struck by the progress of Kurt's fingers on his own shirt buttons. "You've seen me shirtless before," Kurt teases, smiling.

Blaine says, "I meant to keep this on longer," and Kurt immediately feels like an ass.

"For your sake or mine?"

"I don't know."

That makes Kurt pause. "Blaine—"

But Blaine curls his fingers into the thick cotton and shrug-shimmies out of it. "You're right; it's nothing you didn't see the same night we met." And then he slithers out of his jeans and briefs, all at once, leaving them on the floor—his packer must be in there somewhere, but Kurt doesn't look—and hops under the spray. Kurt wastes no time following.

"This—may have been a mistake," says Blaine, glancing up at him archly. "It's too cramped in here. I just want to spread you out and stare at you."

"I want you to. I want to do it to you."

It earns him another kiss, eager and messy under Blaine's cheap showerhead. Blaine wrests his mouth away from Kurt's and finds his neck instead. Kurt gasps, lets his head fall back, and just clings as his pulsepoint is gently mauled. When Blaine shifts south, Kurt grasps him by the elbows and kisses him upright again. "Shower blowjobs are overrated. It's cold down there, and hard on the knees." Another kiss. "There's no rush, Blaine."

"Okay." He reaches behind Kurt for the shampoo. With his hair flattened under the spray, he looks vulnerable. Kurt brushes his thumb over Blaine's cheek again, then runs his index finger over the ball of Blaine's shoulder and down his arm to his sole tattoo: a single, hair-fine band around his bicep, crenellated like the edge of an unfinished puzzle. It's beautiful, and a little spooky.

Blaine lifts his arms to work shampoo into his gelled hair, then uses the suds to wash his face. "You can touch me anywhere," he says, but then turns away to tip his face up to the spray.

Kurt steps in flush behind him. "I want to." He presses his thumbs against Blaine's hip bones and lets his erection brush lightly against his ass. Blaine draws in a deep, shaky breath. Turns around and kisses, pressing himself to Kurt from chest to toes.

The last of the green glitter eddies down the drain.

Once Kurt has washed himself, they towel off hurriedly and come together because it's easier to touch than to look. Leaving their clothes behind them on the floor, they stagger out of the bathroom clutching each other's elbows.

He's got his hand on the door handle when he recalls the injunction of Mama Rose: Pay attention.

Kurt's mind has been ticking since Blaine tried to drop to his knees in the shower. His headlong show of confidence at the door, and the hurried presses of his kisses. The way he's so focused on doing things for Kurt, and twice now dodged the question of what he wants Kurt to do for him. Like he's just a little afraid of what Kurt won't want to do.

The thing is, Kurt's knees bend, too.

Kurt pivots them away from the bed and backs Blaine up against his tall, solid bedroom dresser. He kisses him, open-mouthed and wet, and says, "I want to blow you. Here. You can do me after." Blaine's eyes go wide and dark and shocked. Kurt slides his hands down Blaine's arms, stroking deliberately over his sensitive wrists before he laces their fingers together. He sways forward, shoving their bodies lightly together and retreating. "May I?"

"Yes," Blaine says.

Kurt drops onto the thick sheepskin rug in front of Blaine's dresser. Blaine's pubic hair is dark and abundant; his thighs are thick. Kurt looks up the length of his body, at his beautifully stunned face. "You look amazing." Again, he presses his thumbs into those hip bones. "You smell amazing." Blaine moans a little, helpless and needful. "Tell me if I do it wrong." And then he goes for it.

The angle isn't ideal. He presses one palm low on Blaine's belly, combing pubic hair out of the way and pulling skin taut. Blaine groans, louder now, and plants his feet wider. Kurt presses in close, gets his mouth where he wants it, and sucks, softly at first, but hungrily. He could do this better on the bed. He hardly knows what he's doing at any angle. He wants to lay Blaine out and map him, every fold, every nerve, oh God, he can't wait.

But he's down here with purpose. He likes being on his knees. And he's serving a hunch that the optics are important.

Blaine smells masculine. He tastes good. His toes flex on the rug, and Kurt, following the movement, runs his hand down to clasp his ankle. Blaine jerks his hips. "Oh my God. Oh my God." Kurt doesn't know how to make him come, doesn't know how long it will take or what it will look like. The stuff he found on the internet all suggested it would be less straightforward and more individual than he's used to: pay attention. He pulls back to breathe, slick-chinned, lips buzzing, and looks up. Blaine has both hands fisted in his own hair. The posture lifts his small breasts and makes them round and sculpturally pretty.

"You—" Kurt's voice cracks, and he has to stop and clear his throat. "You're gonna have to teach me how to get you off. Do you want to stay here or—" One hand drops to Kurt's hair and tugs, and Kurt follows the direction and rises to his feet, where Blaine surges into a hot kiss. He keeps pushing, and Kurt gets the picture and stumbles back to the bed.

He topples down, and crab-walks up toward the headboard as Blaine looms over him. The second Kurt settles, Blaine gets a leg over, and curls down to kiss him again. Now that Blaine has him flattened, Kurt wonders if he's going to get that blowjob, but Blaine pulls back just enough to say, throatily, "We'll figure out the foreplay later. Right now we're going full-on het."

"Het isn't a sex act," Kurt protests weakly. Of all people, Blaine knows it.

"Give the man a cookie. Now come here and put your cock in my cunt." It's a little nonsensical: Kurt is already as 'here' as he can get. There's a whiff of a challenge in the blunt instruction.

Kurt narrows his eyes. He caresses Blaine's arms and shoulders as he considers his words. "Blaine, I need you to know: I don't want a version of you. Or part of you. I just want you." He finds Blaine's hand folded around the bunched up duvet, and clasps it.

The light is inadequate for Kurt to tell if Blaine's eyes are glassier than usual, but he takes no chances. He sits up and snatches Blaine into a hug. "I want you, too," Blaine says against Kurt's collarbone. His voice is quite steady. "So much, Kurt."

Blaine's condoms and lube are in a bag with his unopened toothpaste under the bathroom sink, so, once he and Kurt draw apart, he has to hop up sheepishly and dash out and in again before he resettles over Kurt's thighs. Kurt helps with the condom, and smears it generously with lube, and they kiss again for a long and centering moment.

And then Blaine shuffles forward and sinks down, in careful, breathless increments. Kurt can scarcely breathe either. Blaine locks gazes, and leans forward to brace his hands on Kurt's chest. Kurt cranes his neck to kiss him, but can't sustain it as Blaine rocks his hips. "Oh!" Kurt gasps between heated puffs of air. "Oh _wow_." Kurt begins to move too, and they snicker and groan at each other until they find a rhythm.

"Is this good?" Blaine asks. "Is this—"

Kurt nods. Blaine shifts his weight onto one hand, and reaches down with the other to touch himself, and if _that_ doesn't spur Kurt to voice his encouragement…. "Yeah," he pants. "Yeah, yes."

Blaine rears up and throws his head back, and Kurt hangs onto his hips for dear life as they ride out the rest.

* * *

Morning. Clean, watery sunlight trickles in through linen curtains, and skims across the curves of the two figures in the bed.

Blaine's an early riser. He's rolled away from Kurt and onto his back. The sheets are pooled at their waists. He feels every square inch of his exposure to the air: his small, soft nipples, the fine, dark hair on his chest and stomach.

Kurt was sleepy in the aftermath. Blaine got up to wipe himself off in the bathroom, and brought a warm, damp cloth out for Kurt, because that was what he'd read about in the porn he liked. Kurt gave himself a perfunctory swipe and stretched to kiss. Blaine wanted to ask what Kurt thought, whether he'd liked what they'd done. It seemed he had, yet now, in the light of day, old insecurities threaten to resurface, and he wonders just how much has been cracked open.

He has just about determined to slip out of bed and pull on his shirt and binder, maybe lay out ingredients for pancakes in the kitchen, when Kurt stirs. His nose scrunches, and one eye cracks open, and when he sees Blaine looking straight at him, he smiles. "Good morning," Blaine whispers.

Kurt's only reply is a thoughtful nod. He studies the expanse of skin Blaine's left on display, extracting his hand from under his pillow and tracing lightly, carefully across Blaine's torso to cup the taut stretch from ribs to waist. Blaine grabs his arm and tugs until Kurt obliges him by shuffling over and on top of Blaine. He buries his face in the crook of Blaine's neck with a small, happy grunt. Blaine strokes both hands down his back.

He takes a moment to enjoy the feel of Kurt's warm, naked weight, and gather his courage and school his voice, and then he asks, "So…wanna do this again sometime?"

Kurt raises his head. He searches Blaine's face, frowning. "I…yes? Blaine, yes, of course, I thought—"

Blaine can't help reaching up to stroke the soft, thick hair above Kurt's ear. It's so seldom free of product. "It's all right if you don't. It was fun; I loved it; but it doesn't have to…" He trails of, unable to quite make himself say, 'mean anything.'

Kurt, of course, catches his meaning anyway. "And what if it did?"

Blaine stares up at him. "I—I'd like that."

Kurt kisses him. He starts so gently, tracing Blaine's lips in soft sweeps. The kiss remains slow, almost maddeningly so, but deepens as Kurt parts his lips and delves in, reverent and thorough and terribly tender. He braces one arm on the mattress so he can cradle Blaine's face with his other hand, thumb rubbing delicately across the curve of his cheek. There's no mistaking this kiss for anything but a declaration of love.

They part slowly, with multiple failed attempts when one of them can't help darting back in for one more taste. Finally, there's enough space between them again for speech.

"Let's make pancakes," says Kurt, and raises his eyebrows hopefully.

Blaine is better at making pancakes, as Kurt well knows. Kurt can take care of the coffee, and whatever over-fussy stovetop reduction strikes his fancy today. Mixed berries from the freezer, or maybe lemons.

Blaine laughs for joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Some Kind of Stranger](https://youtu.be/5ILpBKetj7E), Sisters of Mercy  
> [Lust for Life](https://youtu.be/eP4eqhWc7sI), Lana Del Rey


End file.
